“Well, now that we’re all here, we might as well get the children something to eat,” said Grandpa Ford.  “Tom can give them hot milk and cakes, and we grown-folks can have some hot coffee to get us ready for the ride out to Great Hedge.  Tom, can you take care of this big family?”

“Oh, I guess so,” was the answer, and the lunchman was not angry now, for he saw he would lose nothing by what Mun Bun had done.

The six little Bunkers ate well, for the other five, as well as Mun Bun, were hungry.  Then, when the grown-ups had been fed, and the broken bowl paid for, Grandpa Ford went out into the storm to tell his man, who was in charge of the horses and sled, that the party was ready to start.  The horses had been kept waiting under a shed so they would be out of the storm.

“Oh, that sounds just like Santa Claus!” cried Margy, as the sound of jingling bells was heard outside the depot.

It seemed rather hard to leave the cosy, bright, warm station at that hour of the night and start out into the darkness and storm.  But the children did not mind it.  They were too eager to get to Great Hedge and see Grandma Ford.  That is, most of them were.  Perhaps Mun Bun and Margy were a bit too sleepy to care much what happened.

“But we can cuddle them down in the straw in the bottom of the sled, cover them with blankets and let them go to sleep,” said Grandpa Ford, as he noted the blinking eyes of the two youngest Bunkers.  “They’ll go to sleep and be at Great Hedge before they know it.”

“How can you find it in the dark?” asked Vi.

“Oh, the horses know the way,” answered the old gentleman.  “Come on.”

“I’m going to make up a riddle about a horse,” began Laddie.  “I have it almost made up.  It’s about what kind of a tree would you like to drive.”

“You can’t drive a tree!” exclaimed Russ.  “All you can do is to climb it, or cut it down.  So there!”

“Yes, you can!” insisted Laddie.  “You can drive my riddle kind of tree.”

“You can not!  Can you, Mother?” appealed Russ.  “You can climb a tree and cut it down, and that’s all you can do to it, isn’t it?”

“You can sit in the shade of it,” said Rose.

“Oh, yes, well, but that doesn’t count!” said Russ.

“Anyhow it’s a riddle,” went on Laddie.  “What kind of a tree would you like to drive?”

“We haven’t any time for riddles now,” said Mother Bunker.  “Come along, children, Grandpa is waiting!”

And, with Laddie’s riddle still unanswered, they went out into the darkness and the storm.

At first it rather took away the breath of the children—­that is, of the four oldest.  Mun Bun was carried by his mother, while Daddy Bunker took Margy in his arms.  Thus they were cuddled up so the cold wind and snow could not blow on them.  Grandpa Ford wanted to carry Violet from the depot out to the waiting sled, but she said she was big enough to walk.